3 Reasons to Sell JPMorgan Chase Today

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The turmoil in the markets makes it too easy to justify selling any stock these days. While an investor's own panic never helps her, it's still a good idea to play devil's advocate with investments.

Consider major bank JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). Though the company is bucking the trend in financials these days, you'll find more than a few of the 3,484 Motley Fool CAPS members weighing in on the company offering reasons to be bearish.

Here at The Motley Fool, we like to consider both the good and bad sides of an investment. Below, I've highlighted three of the main bearish arguments on JPMorgan Chase. Be sure to read the bullish side as well, and then weigh in with your own comments below or rate JPMorgan Chase in CAPS.                                                                                         

1. Deteriorating credit
While trading profits for banks like JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) may look good, some CAPS members think they're only masking some of JPMorgan's underlying risk. Its nonperforming assets more than doubled year over year in the third quarter, and the credit card portfolio it acquired from Washington Mutual has an astonishing default rate that trumps that of other card issuers like Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF) or American Express (NYSE: AXP) by a wide margin.

2. Piling on the reserves
JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon said that there may be signs of stability, but that may not last, since consumer credit is still affected by declining home prices and unemployment. Similar to Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Citigroup (NYSE: C), JPMorgan continues to add to its loan-loss reserves; its total credit reserves now sit at $31.5 billion, and the bank gave no indication that any would be released anytime soon.

3. Gotten ahead of itself
After having its share price nearly triple from its March lows, a good portion of CAPS members are skeptical that JPMorgan's shares can produce good returns from this point forward. Many still see a high amount of risk that doesn't justify owning shares at today's prices.                                                           

To see details of what CAPS members are saying now about JPMorgan Chase, just click on over to Motley Fool CAPS and have a look. Or scroll down and add your thoughts in the comments box below. And don't forget to at least skim what the other side has to say by reading our "3 Reasons to Buy JPMorgan Chase Today."